Well. Happy Birthday, Rukia-chan!
Title: One Step at a Time
Characters/ Pairing: Hitsugaya Toushiro, Kuchiki Rukia; HitsuRuki
Rating: K+ - T
Warnings: OOCness, inconsistencies, language
Summary: There are steps that they have to undertake as they fall in love. A series of mostly interrelated one-shots and what-nots and everything in between of the HitsuRuki Variety.
Disclaimer: I am but a poor college student. I own nothing.
Eh, I wanted to post this on Rukia's birthday, (which is tomorrow in my country) but I figured that I won;t have the time to go online once I go back home since I have to study for exams and shit. So yeah.
This is unbeta-ed. Mistakes are mine.
One Step at a Time
Step 1
Hollow
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As always, it all starts with a freak Hollow incident in Karakura Town. Because it was something of an unspoken truth in the Gotei 13 that anything interesting and potentially dangerous always takes place in the spirit-rich soil of Karakura Town.
If it didn't happen in Karakura Town, then it probably wasn't anything of note.
So it begins like this, during an easy stakeout mission in one of the seediest places in Karakura to get a hold of some type of Hollow that preyed on young women. The Hollow, which the 12th Division had lovingly called Tentacles due to the numerous protrusions in its body, had steadily evaded capture from Karakura's resident Substitute Shinigami, Kurosaki Ichigo and 6th Division Vice-Captain Abarai Renji who had been visiting. The two men, enraged and covered in putrid green slime, claimed that the only reason they couldn't catch it was because they were both so painfully male. They further claimed that the only way to catch and exterminate the Hollow was to have a nubile young woman act as the bait.
And that is why Kuchiki Rukia was sent to the Human World as the nubile young woman acting as the bait to catch some perverted Hollow called Tentacles.
Of course, this arrangement was not without complaints. Kuchiki Byakuya practically stormed the 1st Division and declared that no, you cannot use my precious darling sister as bait for some filthy Hollow, to which the Captain Commander replied with a tartyes, yes, I can, unless of course you're offering to be the nubile young woman in her place, Kuchiki-taichou. Kurosaki Ichigo and Abarai Renji also had something to say about the matter, fervently claiming that Kuchiki Rukia was not nubile, let alone a woman, and to which the Shinigami in question responded with a well-aimed Hadou #33 that ended with the two males spending a few days in Unohana's care, fearing for their progeny.
And due to some lousily-done paperwork courtesy of Matsumoto, Hitsugaya Toushiro, esteemed Captain of the 10th Division and fabled asexual human ice block, finds himself sipping tasteless, sparkling water in one of the seediest clubs in Karakura Town; waiting for the perverted Hollow called Tentacles to finally show up, all the while keeping a close eye on Kuchiki Rukia.
Kuchiki Rukia, who was currently dressed in one of the skimpiest outfits, Toushiro has ever seen; a little black dress that revealed more skin than it covered and a pair of impossibly high, high heels. Her short hair was adorned in a plethora of hairpins, leaving her neck bare for everyone to see. There was also the slightest splash of make-up on her face, the faintest rouge playing daintily on plump lips, and the softest hint of a blush dusting over alabaster cheeks.
All in all, Kuchiki Rukia looked as if she was just another pretty young thing out for a night in town and not a Shinigami in a gigai lying in wait to lure out some Hollow, which was a good thing because otherwise, this mission would have been all for naught.
"Pretty little thing, isn't she?" A voice from his right comments airily, surprising him and causing him to gag slightly on the sparkling water. Teal eyes regarded the bartender warily, and Toushiro berates himself lightly for not noticing the woman earlier.
"I beg your pardon?"
"That young woman you've been staring at for about an hour or so now, she's quite a looker" The woman continues in a manner that reminded him of Matsumoto, before nodding her head towards the raven-haired Shinigami across the room.
He responds with a non-committal grunt, averting his gaze back to his companion.
Kuchiki Byakuya had hounded him to keep an eye on his precious baby sister, and Toushiro had grudgingly agreed after the older Captain had threatened him with some, ahem, incriminating blackmail material. (Toushiro swears that he will destroy those pictures. Someday, he will.) But he has to admit that the 6th Division Captain had cause to worry, because Kuchiki Rukia was a pretty little thing, very pretty, his mind supplies further as a tall man, the thirtieth one tonight, approached the petite girl.
The bartender whistles behind him, "Man, that's like, what, the twentieth one tonight?" She comments airily whilst wiping a glass.
"The thirtieth, actually," he finds himself saying.
"You've been watching her for that long now, and you still haven't gone and talked to her?"
"Shouldn't you be serving drinks?"
"Nahhh, it's a slow night tonight so," the bartender counters easily, grinning up at him. "I can go and bother you all night until you go talk to that pretty little girl over there."
The bartender definitely reminded him of Matsumoto.
Toushiro sighs.
"Oho! You better look now, lover boy," the boisterous bartender suddenly exclaims, catching his attention yet again and making him turn his gaze back towards the little Kuchiki. "Looks like the thirtieth one can't take a hint!"
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Well, someone can't take a hint.
Rukia frowns, feeling decidedly uncomfortable in the horribly short dress that Urahara, the stinking pervert, forced her into earlier. The black dress kept riding up her thighs, revealing skin that she most definitely did not want to reveal and inviting wayward stares from unsavoury individuals.
Just like the one who was currently taking up a large chunk of Rukia's personal bubble.
She had to hand it to the guy though.
He was one insistent little fucker.
"So what's your name, darling?"
Oh, he did not just call her darling.
"What part of I'm not interested did you not understand?" She spits out venomously, lips twisting in a well-practiced sneer. Rukia didn't spend all her time with Byakuya for nothing; she learned some nifty pointers for keeping lowlifes away.
And this one was definitely a lowlife.
It also didn't help that just the man's mere presence made her skin crawl.
The man laughed, his arm circling around her waist in a manner that made the Kuchiki shiver in pure, unadulterated revulsion. "The part that you're not interested, darling, because you obviously are." The man purred lasciviously, leaning closer to her and Rukia has trouble resisting the urge to take out Sode no Shirayuki and freeze the bastard's balls off.
Why, oh why did she agree to go on this stupid mission?
"But Yamamoto-soutaichou, Rukia's not nubile! She's not even a woman!"
Oh, that's right.
She agreed to go on this stupid mission to prove Ichigo and Renji wrong.
Because damnit all to hell, she was a woman!
(Even if there was a time in her distant childhood that Rukia doubted this fact and believed for a while that she was in fact, a boy, and that her penis just hasn't grown yet.
Renji has yet to let her live this moment of confusion down.)
"I'm. Not. Interested." She grinds out through gritted teeth, disentangling herself forcefully from the man's lecherous hold on her. She casually glances towards the bar to look at—
—Hitsugaya Toushiro who wasn't there.
Huh.
Where'd he go?
She briefly scans the bar area for any signs of the white-haired Captain only to succeed in catching the eye of the voluptuous bartender who smiled and waved at her amiably.
Huh.
Well that was weird.
But seriously though, where was the Captain?
Wait.
What if he had to take a bathroom break or something?
...
Yeah right.
Captains didn't take bathroom breaks because bathroom breaks were for sissies and Captains obviously had bladders of steel.
Heh.
Bladders of steel.
Honestly, she cracks herself up sometimes.
"Whatcha looking over there for, sweetheart?"
The bastard was really getting on Rukia's nerves, that much was certain and she sneakily angles her arm a few centimetres, preparing to elbow the man on the stomach if need be. And the need to do just that steadily rose as the man, the sick excuse of a human being, attempted to place his grimy paws on her again.
I swear on Nii-sama'shonor that if one hair from that sick bastard touches me again, I will gut him with a spoon. She thinks viciously, remaining blissfully ignorant of the new, imposing presence behind her.
Until of course someone grabs her from behind, a tanned hand gripping her elbow firmly, making her stumble awkwardly backward before slamming into someone's chest.
Who the fuck?
"Rukia," raising a thin eyebrow, she craned her head to look at the stranger who had grabbed her and her eyes widen when she glimpses the slightest hint of snow white hair and a pair of striking teal eyes.
Hitsugaya Toushiro.
Huh. So that's where he went.
But then she finds her eyebrows knitting together in confusion because Hitsugaya Toushiro just called her by her given name and it was something that was so out of character for the stiff Captain.
"Tai—"
"What gives, shorty? I was talking to her!" The man that had been haranguing her earlier yells out angrily. The muscles in Rukia's neck strains painfully as she leans back to find out what kind of expression was present on the young Captain's face. She sighs, what he must think of her now after this unprecedented fumble? She can't even do her job as bait correctly.
The hand on her elbow shifts to her waist and the slightest of blushes dusts over her cheeks and whoa, whoa, whoa, what is he doing spinning her around like that? And then Rukia finds herself pressed close against the white-haired Captain's chest, looking up at the white-haired male as he regarded her harasser disdainfully.
"She's with me." Hitsugaya says imperiously, a haughty look on his admittedly handsome face. His admittedly handsome face that was inching closer and closer towards her until her eyelashes brush against his cheeks. "Rukia," he breathes out, her name sounding so deliciously foreign on his lips. She looks up at him through thick eyelashes and catches his penetrating gaze before everything becomes fuzzy and out of focus because Hitsugaya Toushiro was kissing her.
Hitsugaya Toushiro, mighty Captain of the 10th Division and rumoured asexual human ice block, was kissing her and Rukia's brain breaks just a little bit.
There is a firm hand on her back and another on her hip, but she can't honestly be bothered as to where the Captain's hands were seeing as she was much more preoccupied with the man's lips and tongue.
And oh, oh my—
What was the Captain doing? She's pretty sure that this wasn't part of the mission…
Not that she's complaining of course.
.
.
.
What was he doing?
What am I doing?
He had acted completely on pure, unprecedented impulse.
Oh god, Kuchiki Byakuya is going to kill me. He thinks belatedly as he watches the man that had been haranguing Kuchiki Rukia leave in disgust. After his sister kills me first, he mentally adds as he steals a look down at the raven-haired Shinigami who he had just…kissed.
"Taichou?" Wide violet eyes stare up at him in question and Toushiro feels the horrible urge to lean down and press his lips against hers again. He was just about to do just that when a sickening reiatsu penetrates his senses.
"It's here," he says, his tone authoritative and sharp, not giving any clue to the foolish twittering inside his chest. "Kuchiki," he addresses her before swallowing down the gikongan. "Secure the area, the 12th Division should have already erected a barrier for this region but call them just in case."
"Yes, sir!"
"And secure the gigais while you're at it. Keep to the side-lines. Your job in this mission is already done. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
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It takes approximately twenty-three minutes and twenty-six seconds for Hitsugaya Toushiro to apprehend Tentacles. It also takes him a ripped Captain's haori, but clothes were trivial even if he expects a nice, long lecture from the Captain Commander about the importance of the Captain's haori, the Gotei 13's pride and all that shebang.
But he really wasn't thinking about that right now.
Rather, he was thinking about how the fighting did nothing to diminish the tingling in his lips and the immense desire to grab Kuchiki Rukia and kiss her again. And that desire was annoyingly strong too, seeing as the petite girl was a hairsbreadth away from him as she healed the minute wounds he received earlier, and really, it would be so painfully easy to kiss her again in this position, just a slight tilt of the head and—
"Hitsugaya-taichou?" Her voice breaks through his reverie, shaking him out of whatever lucid daydream his mind had been crafting. "I'm done," she says, motioning to his newly healed arm. He nods imperceptibly in thanks, feeling her reiatsu in the air between them, making him feel giddy and lightheaded and a couple of other thing he probably shouldn't be feeling right now.
There was something very, very wrong with him. He decides as he enters his gigai, teal eyes drifting towards Kuchiiki Rukia who was doing the same thing with hers.
"Kuchiki, you're staying at Kurosaki's right?"
"Um, yes?"
"I'll accompany you there."
"Ah, no!" She exclaims hurriedly, a pinched look alighting on her face. "I mean, you don't have to do that, Hitsugaya-taichou. I can walk there by myself." She adds the last line haughtily, with a frown on her lips and her arms crossed over her chest. He'd hit a nerve.
Toushiro levels her with an unimpressed stare in his gigai, women honestly. "As much as I trust your abilities as a Shinigami, and believe me Kuchiki, I do, that doesn't change the fact that you're a woman and it would be deplorable of me to let a young woman walk by herself alone in the middle of the night."
"Oh. Um, well, I guess that's alright." The raven-haired Shinigami replies lamely, letting her arms fall to the sides in something like defeat. Hitsugaya's short declaration had pacified her indignant tirade about feminism and whatnot.
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"I guess this is good night, taichou."
He hums softly in reply, and as he was feeling horribly out of character and lightheaded, he leaned down close and brushed his lips against hers ever so softly, a far cry from what he had done earlier in the club.
"I'll see you tomorrow at Urahara's; we'll leave immediately for Soul Society."
"Y-Yes, sir!"
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A/N: This became longer than what I had originally intended. I wanted to stop at a thousand words but then I started getting more ideas and then this just happened.
And then I half-assed the ending because I ran out of things to write.
As previously stated, this will be a series of mostly interrelated one shots and pretty much whatever I feel like writing.
Comments? Suggestion? Violent reactions? Please tell me all about it and review!